Fallon, Nevada’s deadly legacy

In a small town once plagued by childhood cancer, some families still search for answers.

April Brune holds a stuffed dog that belonged to her son, Ryan, who died from brain cancer in 2009. The Brunes, along with several families who live or used to live in Fallon, Nevada, believe environmental factors there are at least partly to blame for numerous cases of childhood cancer.

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The former Brune home on Briggs Lane in Fallon, vacant between renters, and surrounded by tumbleweeds.

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Jeff and Debbie Braccini on their ranch in Fallon. Their son, Jeremy, survived leukemia. Jeff went on to delve into – and poke holes in – the studies surrounding the cancer cluster.

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A report from tests on the Braccini family found elevated levels of numerous metals and chemicals.

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A tungsten mill as seen through the swings at Northside Elementary School in Fallon, Nevada.

Jack Allen refuels an F-16 fighter jet, left, at Fallon Naval Air Station. Jet fuel, which has carcinogenic components, is pumped through Fallon in a Kinder Morgan pipeline that many people believe has leaked.

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A Kennametal kiln refines tungsten ore 10 miles north of town.

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Gary Ridenour, a Fallon doctor, has teamed up with April Brune's attorney, Alan Levin, to uncover environmental causes of cancer. But they're at odds with town and state officials, who have accused them of spreading false information.

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Students trickle out of E.C. Best Elementary School in Fallon, which Ryan Brune had attended since preschool. Attorney Alan Levin has charged that a leak in the Kinder Morgan jet fuel pipeline that runs beside the school contributed to the boy's brain cancer.

One night in May 2008, in a modest ranch house in central Nevada, Ryan Brune woke with a headache. He had complained about the pain earlier that week, but his doctor said it was migraines. This time, he couldn't sleep, and so his mother, April, drove him to the hospital in Fallon, a farming town of 8,200 where the family had lived for most of Ryan's 10 years. He was an otherwise healthy boy, with fleshy cheeks and sandy blond hair, but a CT scan revealed a chestnut-sized mass in his brain. By morning, he was flown to Palo Alto, Calif., and the tumor was removed. Ryan had glioblastoma multiforme, a brain cancer that rarely afflicts children. His likelihood of survival was 1 percent.

The next summer, when Ryan returned to Fallon to spend his last months at home, his hospice doctor mentioned that a friend, Alan Levin, "might know something" about his illness. Levin, who phoned April in September, struck her as "a very smart man." He was both an immunologist and a lawyer, and in the 1980s, he had served as an expert witness in a high-profile lawsuit that accused two chemical companies of polluting drinking water and causing dozens of cases of childhood leukemia in Woburn, Mass. (The suit inspired the book and film, A Civil Action.)

Levin thought Fallon bore an unsettling resemblance to Woburn. From 1997 to 2002, Fallon had also suffered a high incidence of acute lymphoblastic leukemia among children; 16 cases were diagnosed, an alarming number for a small town. Health officials declared it the most significant childhood cancer cluster on national record and launched an investigation unprecedented in cost and scope. They never found the cause.

Levin suspected corporate negligence: He had evidence that a pipeline transporting jet fuel to the Fallon Naval Air Station had leaked underneath E.C. Best Elementary, where Ryan attended preschool. Levin believed both the leukemia cluster and Ryan's condition could be traced to fuel exposure. He based this theory on scientific findings that certain people, due to genetic variations, are less able to detoxify their bodies, and the buildup of contaminants can damage their DNA and cause cancerous growth. In his words, "Jet fuel selected out the susceptible children and gave them cancer."

Levin's claims horrified April. She had asked Ryan's doctors if his illness had anything to do with the leukemia cluster, but they told her that the cluster's cause was still unknown. Why hadn't she heard of the pipeline leak? At the time, she worked at the local airport, where she sometimes overheard people guessing at the cancer's cause. She became curious herself, when, in 2001, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., came to Fallon for a hearing, and April was tasked with refueling her plane. She brought her children to meet Clinton and handed her a letter. "I asked her to not forget about us," she recalled. "I said, 'My children are my life, and I need to know if we need to move out of Fallon.' " April heard nothing more. "I didn't really think about it again until my son got sick."

Ryan died on Oct. 2, 2009. Afterward, April spent sleepless nights on the Internet, searching "jet fuel," "cluster," and "glioblastoma" in various combinations. One night, she discovered a tally of cancer cases in Nevada and thought Churchill County's numbers seemed high. On Briggs Lane, where she and a dozen other families lived, she knew five people with cancer. She thought it odd that at the end of the lane, the pipeline ran beneath the irrigation ditch where her kids often played. "I was putting everything together," she said, but not all the pieces fit. There were many theories about what caused the cancer, some discounting the pipeline. She wrote the mayor; he never replied. She posted a query on an online forum, and a local woman, who had a brain tumor, invited her to lunch but asked to remain anonymous; her husband, who came from "a prominent Fallon family," would disapprove of their meeting. There did seem to be a lot of cancer in Fallon, she agreed, but she didn't know why.

In March 2010, Levin named April the plaintiff in a wrongful death suit against Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, the pipeline operator; ExxonMobil, the fuel manufacturer; and the city of Fallon. The suit also accused the Brunes' employers of contributing to Ryan's illness by exposing his parents to jet fuel without proper safeguards. A judge dismissed the city from the case. The employers settled, and the Brunes used the money to buy a house in Reno that summer. April remained only minimally involved in the case against Kinder Morgan and ExxonMobil, but, in November 2012, agreed to a local television interview. In Fallon, her story was greeted coldly. The Churchill County School District sent an automated phone message to Fallon residents, advising, "The pipeline has not and does not pose a public health hazard. We object to those who take advantage of the sensitive nature of this topic by providing inaccurate or misleading information."

It was clear to April that few in Fallon were willing to admit the possibility that the same agents that caused the cancer cluster may have had lingering effects. Around this time, she noticed a comment online: "It said that everyone lost a lot when the leukemia cluster happened. 'Do you really think we need to revisit this?' I felt sick. I lost this battle with my son, and I want to know why he got this cancer."